Flicker of Light
by megHan5
Summary: Sometimes a small flicker of light can give you a whole new view on things. For a certain pirate of the Caribbean, it brings back memories of a time in his life not so much enjoyed...


Disclaimer: I don't own Pirates or it's characters or Jack. *sigh* Nor do I own the name of Jonathan Draper. He's my friend's dad's cousin.  
  
A/N: This started out as a journal in second period honors English and just kind of ballooned out, I guess. It is meant as a vignette and nothing more.  
  
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Everything enclosing him was pitch black, completely unrecognizable and utterly desolate. But even so, the place was warm and warm was the opposite of the feelings dwelling inside the small boy. Having lived on the other side of the equator his whole life, the Caribbean warmth was alien and disconcerting to the seven-year-old, making his little heart beat even faster.  
  
Dark brown eyes, wide with fear, searched the blackness longingly but found nothing to console, comfort or even frighten him. Nothing could be more frightening than the fear surrounding utter ignorance of seeing nothing at all. Closing his eyes and clutching his new leather hat in tired hands and whitened knuckles; the boy felt tears begin to fall from his eyes. He did not know where he was, he did not know how he got there or even how he could leave. Sighing, he buried his head in his arms and tried to block out everything. His arms, however, did not block out what he saw next.  
  
The boy's eyes snapped open quickly, searching frantically for the light that he knew he had just seen.  
  
He held his breath for a few heart-stopping moments, waiting for the light to come again. Green flashed to his right, and the boy's head followed reflexively. He saw a little bug, hovering in the air and watched in awe as it flashed again. The flickering color was repeated on the boy's right and then on his left, above him and below. Children's eyes opened wider as he now knew that there were too many little flashes of light to count.  
  
Eerie green and gold cast flickering shadows, presenting an all too grim reality for one so young. A familiar alley came into focus around him as John remembered why he was sitting gin a dark, dirty alleyway instead of inside a warm, well-furnished house by the fire. Rose, that was why.  
  
Rose. The woman he hated with all of the strength that his little body could muster and yet, the woman that he loved just as strongly. He did not know why his sister had pulled him away from his home, comfort and everything he was familiar with. He only knew that here he was, living in poverty with his sister and her husband when he could be in the lap of luxury. John shivered involuntarily and wrapped two grimy, under-nourished arms around himself. Tears began to flood already exhausted deep brown eyes once again as he thought of his mother.  
  
He was supposed to be the man of the house when his father left on his all too important business trips, he was the only other man in a household full of women. Now what was his mother supposed to do without him? What was he supposed to do without her?  
  
As one of the little creatures he had been watching in the darkness landed on his ragged sleeve and flashed it's own sympathy, John smiled.  
  
*"I did not believe because I could not see, though you came to me in the night. When the dawn seemed forever lost, you shown your love in the light of the stars."*  
  
The sound of the soft lullaby floating back into his aching head on the warm breeze made him feel surprisingly better and the child wiped away his tears with a grimy hand. Along with the tune that her strong, sweet voice used to sing, his mother's words to him fell onto his ears.  
  
"Remember, John, when all hope seems lost, you are never completely alone. I will always be with you, even if you cannot see me. My love will always be there, in the light of the stars. Unfailing and true." The little seven-year-old looked up at the stars and finding his favorite constellation, Orion, he grinned and imagined his mother smiling down at him.  
  
Seemingly in support of his warm memories, a firefly flashed just out of reach and hovered above the deck of the Black Pearl. The small creature seemed to be daring him to catch it. Slowly closing his hands around the glowing form, he was reminded once again. Reminded of the night that Jonathan Draper was forever lost in a dark alley, never to return again. Opening the cage that his hands had created and watching the insect dart away, Jack Sparrow smiled.  
  
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Well, there we are. My own happy little attempt at an early Jack fanfic. If you like it, or don't or just have any random opinion, review. I would be much obliged. 


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